The Countess of Rudolstadt : being a sequel to "Consuelo"

Front matter

LONDON. EC.

Fennin wulsions,

CHI

Chapter I

Tire Italian Opera House of Berlin, in the early part of the reign of Frederick the Great, was at that time one of the most beautiful in Europe. The admission was gratuitous. Nevertheless, tickets of admission were necessary, since every box had its fixed destination: one being set apart for the princes and princesses of the royal family, another for the corps diplomatique, a third for illustrious travellers, this one for the academy, that for the generals; in short, nothing was to be seen but the kino’s family, the king’s household, the king’s dependents, the king’s protéyés, a circumstance of which none had the right to complain, since the theatre and the actors were the king’s. There remained for the good citizens of the town of Berlin only a small portion of the pit, for the greater part was occupied by the military, each regiment having the right to send a certain number of men. Instead, therefore, of an audience of intelligent, joyous, and excitable Parisians, the artists had before their eyes a pit full of six-feet heroes, as Veltaire called them, smelling strongly of tobacco and brandy, understanding nothing, staring with their eyes wide open, not daring either to applaud or to hiss, out of respect to standing orders. The occupants of the two rows of boxes behind these gentlemen could neither see nor hear anything; but for form’s sake, they were obliged to attend regularly at the spectacle which his majesty had the munificence to provide.

His majesty himself never’missed a ‘representation, thus in some sort, keeping a military eye upon the numerous members of his family and ‘the unquiet swarm of courtiers. His father, Guillaume-le-Gros, had set him an example of this line of conduct in a roughly-constructed theatre, where, while listening to a company of wretched German actors, the royal family and the court sat freezing and shivering in dolorous plight, receiving the quick falling rain without moving a muscle, while the king comfortably slept. Still no one ventured to complain. The theatre was superb, the operas were admirably got up, the artists were of great renown, and the king, usually standing near the orchestra, with his opera-glass turned upon the stage, set the example of an indefatigable dilettantism.

The praises which Voltaire bestowed upon the splendour of the ‘Northern Solomon’s” court are well known. Despised by Louis X V.,neglected by his patroness, Madame de Pompadour, hissed at the Théatre Francais, he had left Paris to receive the office of chamberlain, the Grand Cordon, and the friendship of a philosophical king, more desirable in his eyes than all the rest. The great Voltaire, like a great child, fell to pouting at France, and thought to make his ungrateful fellow-countrymen break their hearts with vexation. It was therefore while still somewhat elated with his new glory, that he wrote to his friends that Berlin outshone Versailles, that the opera of “Phaeton” was the most beautiful spectacle that could be seen, and that the prima donna had the most magnificent voice in Europe.

At the time we commence our story (nearly a twelvemonth has passed since the last adventures of Consuelo), winter having set in with all its rigour at Berlin, and the great king having in some degree shown himself under his true colours, Voltaire began to be singularly disenchanted with Prussia. He was to be seen in his box between D’Argens and La Mettrie, but no longer pretending to like the music, to the charms of which he had never been susceptible any more than to those of true poetry. He was filled with secret grief as he recalled with melancholy feelings the ungrateful public and the fiery audiences of Paris, whose opposition had been so bitter to him, whose applauses so sweet, whose attacks, in a word, had so violently affected him, that he had sworn never to expose himself to them again, though he could not refrain from constantly thinking of them and working without intermission in their behalf. The spectacle was excellent. It was the carnaval; the whole of the royal family, even the married margraves from the depths of Germany, were assembled at Berlin, The “ Titus” of Metastasio and Hasse was in course of representation, while the two principal singers of the Italian troup, Le Porporino and La Porporina, filled the two principal parts. The first was Signor Uberti, anexcellent contralto, the second, La Zingarella Consuelo, an exquisite singer, both pupils of the professor Porpora, who had permitted them to bear his honoured name.

Signora Porporina did not sing in Prussia with that enthusiasm which had inspired her in better days. While the flowing contralto of her companion echoed faultlessly beneath the roof of the Berlin Opera House, in all the security of an assured position, with the ease of incontestable success, and with a certain salary of 15,000 livres for ¢wo months’ engagement, the poor Zingarella, more romantic perhaps, but assuredly more disinterested, and less accustomed to the cold climate of the north, and the still more freezing indifference of an audience of Prussian corporals, lost all her inspiration, and sung with that rigid and faultless precision which, while it leaves nothing for the critic to complain of, fails to excite enthusiasm. Now, there was no enthusiasm in Berlin under the reign of Frederick the Great. Order, obedience, were in the eighteenth century the only virtues that could bloom in that confined atmosphere : weighed out and measured, as it were, by the hand of the king. In all assemblies where he presided, in the whole mass of spectators there was but one person free to give way to his impression, and this was the king. He was, in his own _person, the public; and though he loved music, every faculty and taste was submitted to so cold a logic, that the royal glances fixed upon every movement, and instead of stimulat- _ ing, completely paralysed her powers, The least symptom of inspiration, the least access of unlooked-for enthusiasm, would probably have scandalised Frederick and his court, while difficult and scientific passages, executed with all the - purity of a faultless mechanism, ravished the king, the court, and Voltaire. Voltaire, as every one knows, said, ‘“ Italian music is far superior to French music, because it is more highly ornamented, and because a difficulty conquered stands

B2 at least for something.” It was thus Voltaire understood art.

‘Phe opera was near a close; the king was pleased, and kept turning from time to time towards the leader of the orchestra, to express his approbation by a sign of the head ; he was even preparing to applaud La Porporina at the end of a cavatina, as he had sometimes the goodness to do in person, and always judiciously, when, by an inexplicable caprice, La Porporina, in the middle of a brilliant roulade, where she had never before failed, stopped short, fixed her eyes wildly upon a corner of the theatre, clasped her hands, erying, “ Oh my God!” and fell fainting to the ground. Porporino hastened to raise her; he was obliged to carry her behind the scenes, while a murmur of inquiries, and remarks arose amongst the audience.

During this scene the king addressed the tenor who was still upon the stage, and under cover of the noise said to him, in his brief and imperious tone—

“Well, what is it? what does it all mean? Conciolini, go quickly and see!”

Conciolini returned at the end of a few seconds. ‘+ Sire,” said he, ‘‘ La Signora Porporina looks as though she were dead. They fear that she cannot conclude the opera.”

“Go!” said the king, shrugging his shoulders; ‘ let them give her a glass of water, make her inhale some essences, and see that this is brought to a close as soon as possible,” and the king entered into lively conversation with the leader of the orchestra and the musicians, while a portion of the public, who were much more interested in the state of the royal temper than in the poor Porporina, made vigorous, but useless efforts, to overhear the words of the monarch.

The Baron de Peelnitz, grand chamberlain to the king, and director of the theatres, quickly came to render an account of the interruption.

‘* Well, baron!” said he, loud enough to be heard by any part of the orchestra, ‘‘ will thissoon be over? It is ridiculous! Have you no doctor in the slips? You should always have a doctor at the theatre.”

«Sire, the doctor is in attendance.”

** Tt is serious, then?”

‘Sire, it appears to me to be very serious,”

‘““Tn that case let the curtain be dropped, unless, indeed, Porporino will sing us something by way of compensation.”

Porporino obeyed, and sang two airs delightfully.

The king clapped his hands, the public followed his example, and the representation was over. A moment after, while the court and the crowd were taking their departure, the king stepped upon the stage, and commanded Peelnitz to conduct him to the dressing-room of the prima donna.

An actress suddenly taken ill on the stage is not an event in which every public sympathises as it ought ; generally, however adored the idol may be, there is so much egotism in the enjoyment of the dilettante, that he is much more affected by his own loss of that enjoyment, from the interruption of the amusement, than by the suffering and agony of the victim. Certain ladies, as they were then called, deplored the catastrophe in these terms :—

‘* Poor child! she must have had a burr in her throat, and: in the fear of a failure, she preferred to be taken ill.”

‘* I believe it was no pretence” said a lady ; ‘‘no one falls so heavily when they are not really ill.”

‘Ah! who knows, ma chére 2” replied the first; ‘* when one is a great actress, one can fall as one will, and one does not care for being a little hurt. It tells so well in public.”

At the same moment, the Princess Amelia of Prussia, sister to the king, Abbess of Quedlimburg, exclaimed to her confidante, the beautiful Countess of Kleist —

‘My dear child, did you observe my brother’s agitation during this evening’s adventure ?”

‘No, madame,” replied Madame de Maupertius, chief lady _ to the princess; ‘‘ I did not observe it.”

Oh! I was not speaking to you,” returned the princess, with that quick and decided tone which sometimes gave her 4 strong resemblance to Frederick ; “do you ever observe anything ? Stay, look at the stars now, for I have something to say to Madame de Kleist which I do not wish you to hear.”

Madame de Maupertius conscientiously closed her ears, and the princess, leaning towards Madame de Kleist, said—

“It seems to me that for the first time during the last fifteen, or twenty years, the king is in love.”

‘* Your royal highness said the same. last year with respect to Mademoiselle Barberini, and yet his majesty never thought of her.”

‘Never thought of her! . You are mistaken, my child. He thought of her so much that when the young Chancellor Coccei made her his wife, my brother laboured for three days under the finest fit of repressed rage that ever he had in his life.”

‘¢- Your highness knows well that his majesty cannot endure meésalliances.”’

The princess drew a long sigh, and passing rapidly, according to custom, to another state of mind, she said to the mistress of her household—

‘¢ Maupertius, you are listening to us! you are not looking at the stars as I desired you to do.”

“Ves, I say,” she continued, again addressing herself to her favourite, ‘‘ that the king had an incipient love for this Barberini. I know from good authority that he often took tea with Jordan and Chazols, in her apartment, after the performances were over, and that she had even been present more than once at the suppers of Sans-Souci; a thing unexampled before her time in the life of Potsdam. Shall I tell you more? She lived there, she had an apartment in the palace for several weeks, and it may have been for months together.”

“Since your royal highness is so well informed, you cannot be ignorant that, for reasons of state, which it. is not ~my place to divine, the king has sometimes desired to make , people think that he is not. so austere .as they presume him to be, though in reality”

“Though in reality my brother has never loved any woman, not even his own wife, if one may judge from what is said, and from appearances. Well, I do not believe in this virtue, still tess in this coldness. Frederick was always a hypocrite; but he will not persuade me that Mademoiselle Barberini lived in his palace only to have it believed that she was his mistress. She is as pretty as an angel, and witty as a devil; she is accomplished, and speaks I know not how many languages.”

‘ She is very virtuous, she adores her husband.”

‘* And her husband adores her all the more because he has made a frightful mésalliance. Is it not so, De Kleist? There, you will not reply to me. I suspect, noble widow,

THE COUNTESS OF RUDOLSTADT, ee that you are meditating some such thing yourself with some poor page, or some small bachelor of arts.” * And your highness desires to see a mésailliance de cceur established between the king and some lady of the opera?” ‘“* Ah! with La Porporina the thing would be more probable, and the distance less frightful. I imagine that at the theatre, as at court, there is a hierarchy; for such a

_ prejudice is the whim and the disease of human nature. A

= singer must hold herself much higher than a dancer; and they say, moreover, that this Porporina has fine talent, cultivation, and grace; nay, that she even knows more languages than La Barberini. To speak languages of which he is utterly ignorant, is my brother’s mania. And then music, which he pretends to like greatly, though he knows nothing about it, do ye see, that is another point of interest with our prima donna. ‘Then she also goes to Potsdam in the summer, she has the appartment La Barberini occupied in the new Sans-Souci; she sings at the king’s private concerts. Is not that enough to prove the truth of my conjecture ?”

‘** Your highness in vain hopes to surprise a weakness in the life of our great prince. All that you speak of is done too openly and too gravely for love to have any part in the affair.”

“Love! no. Frederick does not know what love is; but a certain attraction, a small intrigue. Every one speaks of this in secret, you cannot deny that.”

‘““'No one believes it, madame. They say that the king, as a relaxation, makes an effort to be amused with the prattle and the pretty warblings of an actress; but that at the end of a quarter of an hour’s talk and singing, he says to her, as eo 2? he would say to one of his secretaries, ‘ That is enough for

_ to-day; if I desire to have you to-morrow, I will send for

“That is not gallant. If it was thus he made court to Madame de Coccei, Iam not surprised that she could not endure him. Do they say that La Porporina is as cruel to hen?’ .

‘“* They say that she is perfectly modest, well-behaved, timid, and sad.”

‘* Perhaps she is very clever. If she be so, and if one could but trust her—— ”

8 THE COUNTE S OF RUDOLSTADT,

‘* Trust to no one, madame, I implore you.” .

“TI desire to know this Porpcrina, and to see if she ean b made of any use. I greatly-regret that I could not receive her when the king proposed bringing her to sing to me some morning; you know I had a prejudice against her—— ”

‘+ [ll-founded, certainly. It was quite impossible Bs

‘“‘ Ah, let it be.as God willis! Grief and terror have so worked upon me in the past year, that all secondary cares are effaced. I must see this girl, Who knows but that she might obtain from the king what we vainly implore? I have pictured this to myself for some days, and as you know, I think but on one thing. When I saw Frederick anxious and uneasy about her this evening, I became confirmed in the idea that a means of escape might be found through her agency.”

‘J entreat your highness to take great care, for the danger gsroreat.. Sy

“You always say that; I am more suspicious and prudent than yourself. It must be thought of, nevertheless. Awake, my dear Maupertius, we are arrived.”

CHAPTER It.

Wurst the young and beautiful abbess gave herself up to these reflections, the king, without knocking entered the dressing-room of La Porporina, at the very moment when she was returning to consciousness.

‘* Well, mademoiselle,” he said to her, in a tone little expressive of compassion, and scarcely even polite, “ how do you find yourself? Are you subject to these attacks? In your profession this would be a serious inconvenience. Has anything vexed you? Are you so ill that you cannot reply ? Do you answer me, monsieur,” said he to the doctor, ‘who was attending the singer, ‘is she seriously ill?”

‘* Yes, sire,” replied the doctor, ‘‘ the pulse is hardly perceptible. There is considerable disorder in the circulation, and all the functions of life, are, as it were, suspended: the Skin is icy cold.” .

‘That is true,” said the king, taking the young girl’s hand in his own; “ the eyes are fixed, the mouth is colourless, The devil! I thought it a piece of acting, but I was mistaken. The girl is indeed very ill. She is neither mischievous nor capricious, is she, Monsieur Porporino? No one has offended her this evening? No one has ever had any cause of complaint against her, have they ?”

‘* Sire, she is not an actress,” replied Porporino, “ she is an angel.”

‘* Nothing more than that! Are you in love with her?”

** No, sire, my respect for her is without bounds; I look upon her as my sister.”

‘Thanks to you two, and to God, my theatre is about to become a school.of virtue! Ah! she is coming to herself again. Porporina, do you not recognise me ?”

‘* No, monsieur,” replied La Porporina, looking with a bewildered air at the king, who was chafing her hands.

‘‘ Perhaps it is a brain fever,” said the king; “have you ever observed that she was epileptic ?”

“Oh! sire, never! that would be dreadful, indeed,” returned Porporina, hurt at the brutal manner in which the king expressed himself.

“ Ah! hold, do not bleed her,” said the king, repelling the

doctor, armed with his lancet; “I do not like to see innocent blood flowing coldly when not on the field of battle. Leave her alone ; give her air. Porporino, do not let her be bled ; it would, in all probability, be the death of her. These gentlemen fear nothing. I confide her to you. ‘Take her away in your carriage, Poelnitz, and be answerable for her. She is the greatest singer we have as yet had among us, and we shall not quickly find her equal. Apropos, what will you sing us to-morrow, Monsieur Conciolini? ”

The king descended the staircase of the theatre with the tenor, speaking upon other matters, and went to supper with Voltaire, La Mettrie, D’Argens, Algarotti, and the General Quintes Icilius. -

Frederick was harsh, violent, and profoundly selfish. With this, he was generous and good, even tender and affectionate, on certain occasions. This is no paradox. Everyone knows the character, at once terrible and fascinating, of this manysided man, who possessed a complicated organization, full of contrasts, like all powerful natures, especially when they are invested with supreme power, and when a life of agitation has developed all their faculties.

In the midst of supper, while chatting and joking with alternate grace and bitterness, with rudeness and delicacy, in the centre of dear friends whom he disliked, and celebrated beaux esprits whom he but little admired, Frederick suddenly became thoughtful, and rising after a few moments of pre-occupation, said to his guests, ‘‘ Continue talking: I hear you.” Upon which he passed into a neighbouring room, took his hat and sword, made a sign to a page to follow him, and plunged among the deep galleries, and mysterious staircases of his old palace, while his guests, believing him close at hand, took heed to their words, and dared not say anything which he might not hear. Moreover, they were so mistrustful of one another (and not without cause), that whatever spot they might be upon in the Prussian territory, they ever felt the formidable and malicious phantom of Frederick hovering over them.

La Mettri ie, the physician but little consulted, and the reader but rarely listened to by the king, was the only one among the courtiers who knew no-fear, and who inspired none. Whether from some singular frankness, profound calculation, or audacious indifference, he treated the king with as little ceremony as the king pretended to desire. He would take off his cravat, his wig, even his shoes in his apartments, talk freely with him, contradict him openly, express himself without restraint upon the little value to be attached to worldly grandeur, speak of royalty as of religion, and comment upon all other prejudices attacked by the reason of the day; im a word, he would conduct. himself in so cynical a manner, and give so many occasions for disgrace or dismissal, that it was a miracle to see him stand his ground where so many others had been overthrown and crushed for the most trifling peccadilloes. The reason of this was, that upon characters suspicious and distrustful as Frederick’s, an insidious word repeated by a spy, any appearance of hypocrisy, the slightest doubt, makes more impression than a thousand imprudencies.. Frederick looked upon La Mettrie as a madman.

‘* But he is sincere, he would add, and does not. hold two languages, two opinions, as regards me. He cannot treat me worse in secret than he does to my face; while for the rest who are at my feet, what do they not say and think when I turn my back upon them, and they can raise their heads, Then La Mettrie is the most honest man I possess, and I ought to endure him all the more that he is unendurable.”

The Marquis d’Argens, chamberlain, with six thousand francs salary (the first chamberlain, Voltaire, had twenty thousand), was the true Frenchman of his time ; a superficial philosopher, a light and rapid writer, good-natured, giddy, licentious, sentimental; at once brave and effeminate, spirituel, generous, and scornful; a middle-aged man, romantic as a youth of twenty, and as sceptical as an old man. He had endéd by marrying in secret Mademoiselle Cochois, first actress of the Comédie Frangaise at Berlin, a woman plain even to ugliness, but very intelligent, whom he had pleased himself with educating. Frederick was still ignorant of this mysterious union, and D’Argens took care not to reveal it to those who might betray him. Nevertheless, Voltaire was in his confidence. D’Argens sincerely loved the king, but he was not more beloved by him than the rest. Frederick believed in no one’s affection, and the poor D’ Argens was now the accomplice, now the butt of his cruel pleasantries.

It is well known that the colonel upon whom Frederick bestowed the emphatic surname of Quintus Icilius, was by birth a Frenchman, named Guichard, an energetic soldier, and a skilful tactician ; for the rest, a great plunderer, like all people of his species, and a courtier in the full meaning of the word. 3

We will say nothing concerning D’Algarotti, that we may not weary the reader with a whole gallery of historical personages. It will be sufficient to indicate the anxieties of Frederick’s guests during his absence. We have already said, that instead of feeling relieved from the secret embarrassment which oppressed them, their uneasiness was but increased, and they could not say a word without glancing at the half-open door by which the king had gone out, and from behind which he was, perhaps, surveying them. La Mettrie was the only exception, and observing that the attendance upon the table was neglected in the absence of the king—

““Parbleu ;” he cried, ‘I think the master of the house is very ill-bred to leave us thus without servants and chamey THE COUNTESS OF RUDOLSTADT.

pagne. I shall see if he be in his room that I may codniplain to him.”

He rose, and without fear of committing an indiscretion, went into the king’s chamber, and returned, crying—

‘* No one is there! Thisis pleasant! He is quite capable of getting to horse and performing a manceuvre by torchlight to aid his digestion. The queer animal !”

‘Tt is you who are a queer animal,” said Quintus Icilius, who could not reconcile himself to the strange manners of La Mettrie.

“So the king has gone out,” said Voltaire, beginning to breathe more freely. ;

*¢ Yes, the king has gone out,” said the Baron de Peelnitz, entering. ‘¢ I have just met him ina back court, with one page for his escort. He was in grand incognito, and wore his wall-coloured dress, therefore I did not recognise him at all.”

We must say a word upon this third chamberlain who had just entered, otherwise the reader will not understand how another than La Metirie should dare to express himself with so little ceremony concerning his master. Pcelnitz, whose age was as problematical as his salary and his functions, was that Prussian baron, that rowé of the regency, who shone in his youth at the court of Madame Palatine, the mother of the Duc d’Orleans. He was a reckless gambler, whose debts the King of Prussia refused to pay; a great adventurer, a cynical libertine, an unconscionable spy; not a little of a sharper, a shameless flatterer, supported, despised, ridiculed, and very ill-paid by his master, who, notwithstanding, could not dispense with his services, since an absolute monarch has always need of some man capable of the worst actions, and who finds in their performance the means of living and indemnity for his evil deeds. Pcelnitz was, moreover, at this period. the director of his majesty’s theatre, a species of supreme commissioner of his privy purse. He was already called the old Peelnitz, as he was called some thirty year’s later. He was an eternal courtier. He had been page to the last king, and joined to the refined vices of the regency, the cynical grossness of the divan of Le Gros Guillaume, and the impertinent formality of the military and bel-esprit reion of Frederick the Great. His favour with this monarch being a chronic state of disgrace, he cared little for losing it ; and then, as he always played the part of a provocative agent, he had no real fear of the bad offices of any one with the master who employed him.

““Pardieu! my dear baron,” cried La Mettrie; “you should have followed the king, and then have come and told us his adventure. -We would have made him swear on his return, by telling him how, without leaving the table, we had seen his actions and movements.”

“Still better!” said Pcelnitz, laughing ; “we could have told him that to-morrow, when we might have set the divination down to the account of a sorcerer.”

‘What sorcerer?” asked Voltaire.

“The famous Count de Saint Germain, who has been here since the morning.”

‘Indeed! I am very curious to know if he be a charlatan or a fool.”

‘““And there is the difficulty,” said La Mettrie; ‘he plays his game so well, that no one can determine which he is.”

‘* That is not so foolish, either,” said Algarotti.

“Tell me about Frederick,” said La Mettrie; “I want to pique his curiosity by some good history, that he may regale us some of these days at supper with Saint Germain and his adventures before the Deluge. That will amuse me. Come now! where is our dear monarch at this moment? Baron, you know! You are too curious not to have followed him, or too malicious not to have divined.”

‘““ Would you have me tell you?” said Peelnitz.

“I hope, monsieur,” said Quintus, becoming purple with indignation, ‘‘ that you are not going to reply to M. la Mettrie’s strange questions.. If his majesty-———”

“Oh! mon cher,” said La Mettrie, “there is no majesty here from ten o’clock in the evening till two o’clock in the morning. Frederick made this a statute once for all, and I but recognise the law: ‘ There is no king at supper.’ You do not see that this poor king is weary, and you will not assist him, bad servant and friend as you are, to forget in the sweet hours of night the burden of his grandeur? Come, Poelnitz, dear baron, speak ; where is the king now? ”

“ J will not hear,” said Quintus, rising, and quitting the table.

‘- At your pleasure,” said Peelnitz. ‘ Let those who will not hear close their ears!”

“JT open mine,” said La Mettrie.

“© And, by my faith, so do I,” said Algarotti, laughing,

* Messieurs,” said Poelnitz, “ his majesty is with the ‘Signora Porporina.”